Room 307 and the Race to Get There – UCP Leadership Contestants (So Far)

Although the official rules have yet to be released, the 2022 UCP leadership race is already more crowded than the inaugural campaign in 2017. Then, there were a total of three candidates who made their way onto the ballot (Jeff Callaway withdrew before the vote began) and featured the likes of Jason Kenney, Brian Jean, and Doug Schweitzer.

Jason Kenney walked away with 61.2% of the vote, followed by Jean at 31.5% and Schweitzer at 7.3%.

At the time of writing, there are five candidates who have officially registered with Elections Alberta but more have been all but confirmed to be joining the contest as they’ve made or will make formal announcements. While others have been rumoured to be exploring a run such as Minister Rebecca Schulz or Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, we will focus on those that are confirmed or have formally announced their participation in the 2022 UCP leadership race.

Leela Aheer

After being ousted from cabinet by Premier Jason Kenney, Aheer became a vocal critic of the person who removed her from the decision-making table. Now, she is running to take his job. She had seemingly (at least symbolically) thrown her support behind Brian Jean’s bid prior to the leadership review – going so far as to appear with Todd Loewen at one of his press conferences outside of Rachel Notley’s constituency office. Nevertheless, she’s in.

Aheer is taking the lane of accountability and restoring trust in the UCP. "We owe that to people … to be able to be truthful about the mistakes that have been made because there's been plenty.” On her campaign website, she has also referenced the desire to bring stability to the province, tackle inflation at home, and finding efficiencies in government rather than continuing the “cut and spend” cycle.

Brian Jean

Many will remember how the last leader of the Wildrose became the first person to unofficially declare their participation in the UCP leadership race well before he even won his by-election. For Jean, everything appears to be going according to (his) plan since re-entering the political scene in Alberta. He is hoping to realize the last step of his strategy – become Premier of Alberta.

Although he has been campaigning for many months now, Jean’s official kick-off will be taking place on Wednesday. For him, this will become a pivotal moment for his political future as he will finally begin to pivot from his anti-Jason Kenney rhetoric and into what he hopes to accomplish as the province’s next premier. We won’t know more about his platform until his announcement tomorrow, but we do know he is running under the slogan of “Autonomy for Albertans”.

Despite the curious choice of vernacular, we are not expecting to hear Jean run on a platform of independence from Canada a la René Lévesque. We anticipate the word autonomy was chosen to represent a platform of less government and more personal freedoms for residents. This was one of his most frequent gripes with Premier Kenney even before he signaled any desire to return to political life.

Todd Loewen

The MLA for Central Peace – Notley has been sitting as an independent member since his and Drew Barnes’ outing from the party in May 2021 for their open dissent of Premier Jason Kenney. Since, he has made a living calling out the decisions of his former colleagues (specifically in cabinet).

At his launch, he indicated that “there’s been a lot of talk about blue truck politicians lately, but it’s time we had a leadership campaign about blue truck Albertans. By that I mean the everyday Albertans who go to work to provide for their families and grow their communities.” It is his hope, like the rest of the field, to reunite the UCP in order to bring forward a unified voice into the 2023 provincial election. Specifically, he wants to bring back the grassroots voice of the party, something he has advocated for since his departure from the party.

Bill Rock

At the time of writing, the Mayor of Amisk is one of only two individuals running for leadership of the UCP who do not currently hold a seat for the party (and the only person to have never held a provincially elected seat). He did run in 2015 for the Wildrose, but finished in third place.

Rock is branding himself as the outsider candidate who is focused on advocating for rural issues in the Legislature. He’s suggested that “if nothing else, I’m going to get the conversation started on rural Alberta. I want to make sure rural Alberta is heard during this leadership contest.” Among the issues he’s cited are ambulatory services, rural crime, and tackling infrastructure deficits.

Rajan Sawhney

The now-former minister of transportation has an interesting path in front of her. Sawhney enlisted the help of well-known conservative strategist Ken Boessenkool to assess the viability of a potential leadership bid and whether or not she would be “more of the same”. It was determined the former transportation minister would not occupy another candidate’s lane (pun intended) and that he would support her candidacy.

From what we have seen, it sounds like she is going to be running with an ‘Alberta First’ platform. This would make a lot of sense for her given that most of the other candidates seem to be running on an anti-Jason Kenney messaging arch. This would also make sense given Boessenkool’s involvement on her campaign given he was a signatory to the infamous “firewall letter” addressed to former Premier Ralph Klein. She’s already separated herself from any potential connection to Premier Kenney by announcing her first endorsement as long-time Kenney dissident, MLA Angela Pitt (who is also chairing her campaign). Her first campaign promise was to announce she would launch a full investigation into Alberta’s COVID-19 response.

Rebecca Schulz

The soon-to-be former Minister of Children’s Services is the most recent candidate to throw her name into the mix for UCP leadership – she is announcing today, in fact. As her announcement is too fresh to comment on in this article, it is difficult to speculate what lane she will fill. With the information we have available, it is expected that she will be the middle-of-the-road candidate.

Internally, she was well respected by her party for her efforts to negotiate as Alberta-centric of a bilateral childcare deal with the federal government and refusing to sign on the dotted line when initially approached. For UCP members, a demonstrated resolve in challenging the federal government could go a long way for her new-found political aspirations.  It will be interesting to see who publicly endorses her as that will be telling of what demographic she will be courting during the leadership campaign.

Danielle Smith

Smith represents the second of the former Wildrose leaders hoping for another kick at the can to become Premier of Alberta. She came very close to defeating the Alison Redford-led Progressive Conservatives in 2012 and was viewed by many to be the premier-in-waiting until she led an unexpected floor crossing to the governing party (then led by Jim Prentice). She subsequently lost her nomination and left provincial politics.

Her and Todd Loewen are filling similar lanes (though she brings more experience to the table as a former leader). She wants to be a unifying force for the party and conservatism on the whole while restoring the role of the grassroots voice in provincial politics. For Smith, she says she wants her return to be a continuation of her last stint in provincial politics while applying the lessons she has learned from previous mistakes.

She does not currently hold a seat in the Legislature and has announced her plans to seek the nomination for Livingstone-McLeod (currently held by Roger Reid) for which a nomination date has not yet been announced.

Travis Toews

Of all those who can be described as potential front-runner candidates, the former Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board may have the most difficult uphill battle ahead. On the surface, Toews undoubtedly checks many of the boxes that you would normally expect from one with leadership aspirations – a strong fiscal acumen, highly educated, legitimate rural roots, and little political baggage to carry. He also holds bragging rights of being the last finance minister to balance the budget.

However, his anchor is the perception of his close connection with the outgoing premier.

Although we’ve already discussed how other UCP MLAs and ministers are putting their names forward for leadership, he is burdened with baring the ‘old guard’ label that 48.6 per cent of members voted against in the recent leadership review process. He has released a list of 23 UCP MLAs that have endorsed him, most of which are ministers and higher-ranking officials.  He has named Energy Minister Sonya Savage and Grande Prairie MP Chris Warkentin as his campaign co-chairs.